The Charlatans celebrate new single ‘Plastic Machinery’ with ‘app’ screens for all 42 of their singles to date

Today The Charlatans announce the first single from their forthcoming 13th album ‘Different Days‘. It features Johnny Marr on guitar and, formerly of The Verve, drummer Pete Salisbury: you’ll hear it for the first time on Lauren Laverne’s BBC 6Music show on Monday, April 3 before its release as a single on Friday, May 26.

Frontman Tim Burgess says watching Marr work with guitarist Mark Collins at The Charlatans’ Middlewich studio was “one of the best experiences I have had in the studio.”

Tim Burgess

“Jim Spencer and I were watching open-mouthed as the two guitar heroes did their thing,” he explains. “‘Plastic Machinery’ has its own personal energy, it’s hard to put a finger on it but it’s very unique. When Pete [Salisbury] came in to record the drums I realised he had ourselves quite a supergroup.”

The Charlatans are known for creatively reimagining their discography – as in the case of these redesigned classic books – and to celebrate the announcement of ‘Plastic Machinery’, the band have created a set of ‘app’ screens for all 42 of their singles to date, as well as one EP. Check them out below:

Fans with a good memory will also remember June’s Tune map, which charted more than 150 songs of the band’s discography in the unmistakable graphic design of the Tube map. They’ve since added ‘Different Days’ to the map. Where the ‘lines’ of albums intersect, they share a song. Dotted lines are bonus tracks; aeroplanes are songs on import albums; a line through a song indicates it’s a hidden track. The zones of the background are actually a picture of the band from the cover of ‘Forever: The Singles’. Check out the updated version here, and click to see a larger version: